If I bought it, it would be with the stock configuration (2nd Generation Intelฎ Core i7-2670QM, 2.2GHz) but the maxed video card (nVidia GeForce GTX 580M 2,048MB). In total it would cost around $1600-1700.

Does that seem like a decent value for the money? And is the graphics card fairly beefy compared to desktop graphics? I do pretty much everything on my current notebook, from writing to the occasional gaming. And I do enjoy pretty graphics...

I'd say that's good value for money, definitely. So much so I want one now.

But as Alucard said, if you can, spend money on a good Gaming desktop, I'd go for that. The price of a good Gaming PC, and then a laptop on top of that, could be cheaper than the price of just that one laptop, and you'd end up with a better gaming machine in process, and you don't need a powerful as fuck laptop if you'll just be doing word processing on it.

Just curious, whyyou arent buying a desktop instead. I mean it would cost you like $600 for those specs. And you can go way way more powerful.

See, I take my notebook back and forth between home and work. My desk job is where I do much of my writing and PC gaming because it affords me a lot of free time. And it's very convenient to have all the same stuff with me whether I'm at home or work or on vacation (though I know using cloud stuff would achieve a similar effect).

I think I'm going to go for it (the GF approves because I'm giving her my old notebook which is still nicer than her puny desktop). Highly considering the better thermal compound option and 8 GIGs of the fastest RAM. Can always upgrade the processor and add more RAM later when the prices drop.